Barnaby Joyce, and it's an ill apocalyptic wind that blows no good ...

(Above: hark, is that Barners battling against the wind and the Labor hordes, or merely a wiki illustration for the wreck of the Hesperus?)

It's been a long time between drinks for Barnaby Joyce and the pond.

And it's been a long time between drinks for Barnaby Joyce and the punch-drunk The Punch. His last entry was a forlorn one on the 30th September, and the one before that dazzled us on the 7th June (and here is his listing).

We miss him, not least because of our shared Tamworth roots (you there, the boy in the back row, stop your wretched sniggering, or feel the sting of chalk on your farmyard cheek), which are of course deeply spiritual.

It turns out that Barnaby is still on the move, and our first clue came at Revelations ensure silly season sizzlers, which quoted Barners quoting Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

Intrigued, we raced off to Barners' site, where we discovered - yaroop garooarh, oh fractious joy - that he's turned to the Media Release as a kind of instant blogging, and if you head off here to his newsroom, you too can join in the read.

Oh sure there's relatively dry stuff - like the latest outing, only a day ago, bemoaning the way Labor turn their backs on regional Australia, a pet Barners theme.

And then there's the little dollops, like More bureaucratic bungles from Labor, bemoaning the way the wretches managed to get the Snowy river flowing. Damn city folk, don't they understand that when it rains, water flows, and rivers flood, and the next thing you know you're up to your eyeballs in the mud, and the only good river is a river that's been broken, tamed and damned. Or dammed. Whatever.

As any gold miner knows however, a little hunting is required for the tasty nuggets, and there it was, in Another Murray-Darling misstep from Labor, suggesting Barners might well be in form, and perhaps even deserving of a call up to the Australian eleven, twelve or fifteen, or however many it takes to waste Australian mens' lives watching the team lose to the English:

Labor's approach to the Murray-Darling is turning into absolute disaster. You may forgive an opening batsman a few plays and misses early in the innings, but Labor’s innings in the Murray-Darling is becoming like an imitation of a human fan, all swing and no contact.

It makes you wonder whether anything will be resolved with this line up.

A human fan! Oh well played Barners, stout lad.

And then on the ninth of December, on what was a three media press release hard blogging day, we struck peak oil, or gold, or whatever you care to strike, under the comedy stylings titled Austen Arbib - International Man of Mystery.

Even the header gives you a clue. Barners is as willing to throw a leg over a joke as Warnie, and he aspires naturally to Mike Myers, and his parody of ancient spy films (here). Sure it's an old show - it came out in 1997 - but there's a reason there's so many hits and memories radio shows in the bush, because the day the music died can be accurately traced to 1989, and anything since then has been vile, reprehensible tosh. Likewise with the movies, and Myers only gets the nod because his heart is back in the sixties.

Sure, because Barners makes use of WikiLeaks for political advantage, we have to label him a devious, deviant Fellow Traveller, but all the same, oh my gosh, lordy lordy, what fun, as he grabs the mike and goes into his routine:

Oh my gosh there is such a wealth of material today that has come to light, so I will have to be brief. Who would of thought?

1. Via the Wikipedia leaks, apparently Senator Mark Arbib has been moonlighting as some type of political double agent. It reminds me of Willard’s conversation with Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. Kurtz- Are you an assassin? Willard- I am a soldier. Kurtz-You’re neither; you’re an errand boy sent by the grocery clerks to collect a bill.

Mike Myers, Kurtz, Willard, Conrad, and Coppola! Now that's film buff class.

But Barners is just warming up:

Just when you think it could not get stranger, it just did. What is wrong anyway with having a part of the political executive reporting to the US about a change in our nation’s leadership before we the Australian people knew?

Ta boom!

That's way better than Krusty the clown's line:

I've been doing this show for so long that when I started, the Ayotolah only had a goatee (applause sign rings twice, and no one in the audience laughs), what's the matter, don't you people read the WikiLeaks? (oh okay it was the newspapers but we've got to keepthe jokes timely and up to the minute).

Sock it to us again Barners, hit us with the good stuff, rip into us with your best shot:

2. Haven’t the ACTU got a deal to die for. The cheapest real estate in Canberra –free – and right in the centre of the action, Parliament House, Capital Hill Canberra, c/o Mr Richard Marles MP.

Oh okay, a tad muted and a bit insider, but hey, they always say to lead off with your best line, and then put your worst track at number two.

What else you got?

3. If you have a whoopee wish list here are two alternatives. You can send it to Mr Santa Clause, The North Pole, or you can send it to the Greens or the Independents and they will forward it on to Mr Ken Henry at the Australian Treasury for costings. Poor old Ken is about to permanently move with his wombats as they are more logical than some of the rubbish that he has to seriously consider as the Greens and Independents become the conductors of the band at the beer tent.

That's better, way better, complete with whoopee cushion - can a rustic fart joke be far behind - and seasonal. Throw in Santa Clause, a joke about Ken Henry's wombat fixation, and the band at the beer tent, and you're ahead of the holy trinity.

4. Mr Mike Taylor has been told by his boss Mr Burke to ignore the Water Act which is actually the riding instructions. A bit like the Treasurer telling the Reserve Bank to ignore its charter and do what Wayne says. Not surprisingly Mike resigned.

Sheesh, bummer dude, does this mean that god and Mary MacKillop failed?

In Rome for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop, Opposition water spokesman Barnaby Joyce said he was ''praying for a miracle to save regional Australia from Labor's plan to pull the rug out from whole communities''. (here)

Ah well, another wasted, useless canonisation, but at least Barners had a junket to Rome, and what a fine town it is ...

No, never mind the cost of politicians flying about willy nilly, we're in serious trouble:

5. Our debt went up by over a billion last week. It is now at $174.45billion gross.

Heck, is that all? Come on Barners, I see that the US National Debt Clock is showing the United States is currently scoring US$13,852,956,908,296.47 (here). Now that, as Paul Hogan might say, is a debt ...

Never mind, it's good to have our own Chicken Little reminding us every so often the sky is falling in - that's why 5. is more of a sight gag, you know with the feathers, and the clucking, and the scratching about, and perhaps a big cockadoodledo - but how about one last scribbled gag to round out the routine?

6. Your Foreign Affairs minister is apparently not across the detail, flies off on tangents and is a control freak.

But do not worry Australia. It is all under control, really. Just like Wreck of The Hesperus.

Ah, what would we Fellow Travellers do without WikiLeaks?

And the wreck of the Hesperus is a nice touch, returning us full circle to Coppola, by way of Henry Wadsworth Longellow, and as Barners takes a bow, and soaks in the applause for a nice routine, it gives us a chance to go out with that much loved poem (you can read the first half here if you like, and imagine what it was like doing poems and poetry and stuff in Tamworth) ...

Oh and to remember that him who still'd the waves on the lake of Galilee can sometimes disappoint not just Barners and the Murray Darling but a heck of a lot of others in a spot of bother:

"Dear father! I see a gleaming light
O say what may it be?"
But the father answer'd never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lash'd to the helm all stiff and stark,
With his pale face to the skies;
The lantern gleam'd thro' the falling snow
On his fix'd and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasp'd her hands, and pray'd
That saved she might be;
And she thought of Him who still'd the waves
On the lake of Galilee.

But fast thro' the midnight dark and drear,
Thro' the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the bark swept on
To the reef of 'Barnaby's Woe'.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheath'd in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank,
Ho! Ho! the breakers roar'd!

At daybreak on the bleak sea beach
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair
Float by on a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And her streaming hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the waves did fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Oh! save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of 'Barnaby's Woe'.

Where on earth would we be without politics and politicians? Uncultured swine, and that's a fact, so let's hope Barners keeps up with blogging by media release, and keeps the cultural references and jokes flowing ...

And then bow your heads in solemn admiration, mere mortals, as you wonder yet again at the gleaming light that shines forth from Tamworth, centre of the known universe ...

Update: well a joke about a wreck turned out to be most unfortunate timing. All I can do is blame Barners and the eternal capacity for tastelessness or bad luck in Tamworth people, not nearly the bad luck of people wanting to flee Asian or middle eastern war zones, no matter how Paul Kelly might blather about how wonderful life in Asia might be ...

(Below: and now a little something for the lads back in Tamworth. Don't thank me, thank Hugh and Francis and Barners).